Symbolism In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Hospitals are meant to help some people heal physically and others mentally. In the novel One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey published in 1962, readers are introduced to a mental hospital that has goals that do not align with helping people. Within the hospital, characters with varied personalities and opinions are intermixed with three main characters playing specific roles with supporting characters close by. With the characters’ motivations, themes develop such as the emasculation of the men in the hospital by an oppressive nurse. Symbols, such as laughter and the “combine”, are also pertinent to themes as the readers watch the men transitioning from being oppressed to being able to stand up for themselves causing change in hospital policy.

Crazy people are only crazy when they don’t fit in. Colonel Matterson, in Ken kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, appears to be the archetypal insane asylum patient, but upon further investigation, supports many ideas conveyed at other points in the text. He does so in large part by comparing America, Canada, and Mexico to several miscellaneous items. These items are representative of various ideas throughout the novel, connecting to motifs that display a single larger theme. Colonel Matterson’s metaphors are aligned with a broader theme of the rejection of American society’s standards.

The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey is about the power structure of a mental ward from the perspective of a patient, Bromden. The story takes place during the 1950's in Oregon. Many of the patients on the ward are not necessarily insane however do not fit in with pre established societal norms and have chosen a life away from these norms. The men who are voluntary have given in to the staff and follow them like sheep, however, the men who are committed need controlling according to society so they were sent to the ward. The head nurse, Nurse Rached, of the ward keeps control using her staff that has been picked out over years of meticulous selection. The staff under Rached's orders keep control of the patients

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a novel written by Ken Kesey during a time in our society when pressures of our modern world seemed at their greatest. Many people were, at this time, deemed by society’s standards to be insane and institutionalized. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is set in a ward of a mental institution. The major conflict in the novel is that of power. Power is a recurring and overwhelming theme throughout the novel. Kesey shows the power of women who are associated with the patients, the power Nurse Ratched has, and also the power McMurphy fights to win. By default, he also shows how little power the patients have.

Silence is not a factor of significance. A man who never speaks is not an insignificant one. Chief Bromden watches quietly, he knows all the ins and outs of his prison. He is easily the sanest and most knowledgeable patient in the ward. That is until McMurphy comes along and stirs everything up. In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the reader hears Bromden’s thoughts and opinions of how terrible the ward and the people within it. The film adaptation directed by Milos Forman, Forman makes the choice to focus on the protagonist of the story, Randle McMurphy. Chief Bromden is hardly present in the film, thus leaving the true characterization of many main characters underdeveloped. It is difficult for the viewer to truly get a sense of significance for key events in the film if the narrator of the original story is cut out.

The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is about a man named Randle McMurphy, who gets transferred to a psychiatric ward in Oregon that is run by Nurse Ratched, a former army nurse who runs the ward with harsh precision. The story is told in first person point of view by Chief Bromden, a Native American man who pretends to be deaf and dumb. McMurphy tries to break Nurse Ratched in order to win a bet he made with the patients on the ward and to teach the patients there that they can survive themselves. Randle McMurphy is shown as a Christ figure in the novel.

In this book written by Ken Kesey, the main character is a man named R.P. McMurphy who tricks people into thinking that he is a psychopath. To McMurphy, the asylum is a get out of jail free card, which quickly turns out to be something else entirely. However, one vital aspect of this book is the way in which it addresses and provides insight upon several contemporary issues relating to the American healthcare system, by illustrating the ways in which our modern healthcare system has improved and grown in the last five decades. This includes the following areas of healthcare: the need for a healthcare reform, the lack of healthy doctor-patient relationships, and the murky definition of mental illness.

Although Big Nurse turns McMurphy to a vegetable at the end of Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey’s portrayal of McMurphy as a God-like symbol in the lives of the men on the ward helps criticize the diagnosing of “crazy” people in the mid 1900s. Specifically, Big Nurse subjects McMurphy and Chief Bromden to shock therapy after a fight with the black men who were cleansing the men. As they enter the chamber, McMurphy stops Bromden: “Take ‘er easy. I’ll go first” (237). McMurphy then “Climbs on the table” and “spreads his arms out to fit the shadow” (237).

The book, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” is a story about the exploits of the struggling patients of a psychiatric ward, an overbearing nurse, and a vulgar but lively new admission. Within this particular story, Kesey implements thematic elements in the story. These elements are known as motifs in which gives the story a deeper meaning including the characters as well. Three motifs are used to influence the reader’s understanding of the story which are the fog, the religious Christ aspect, and people as machines. Throughout the novel these elements are heavily noticed and do provide such deep meaning to the characters and story. With this in mind this makes the story more of a true experience.

Works of literature innately embody the author’s ideology and the historical context of the given time period. Within the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, the author furthers his ideals against the issue of oppression as he attempts to take stabs against its deteriorating effects and support those who rebel. Set in the microcosm of a small mental hospital, he establishes man’s external struggle to overcome tyranny. At the head of the head of the ward is the corrupted character of Nurse Ratched, who rules with an iron fist and the help of her machine like aides. It also features the nonconformist character, McMurphy, as he works to break Nurse Ratched’s endless cycle of tyranny. Although the novel shifts between the

“A success, they say, but I say he’s just another robot for the Combine and might be better off as a failure…”(17).

When norms of society are unfair and seem set in stone, rebellion is bound to occur, ultimately bringing about change in the community. Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest demonstrates the conflict of individuals who have to survive in an environment where they are pressured to cooperate. The hospital's atmosphere suppresses the patients' individuality through authority figures that mold the patients into their visions of perfection. The ward staff's ability to overpower the patients' free will is not questioned until a man named Randal McMurphy is committed to the mental institute. He rebels against what he perceives as a rigid, dehumanizing, and uncompassionate

   In 1962, when One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (the Nest), was published, America was at the start of decade that would be characterized by turmoil. Involvement in Vietnam was increasing, civil rights marches were taking place in the south and a new era of sexual promiscuity and drug use was about to come into full swing. Young Americans formed a subgroup in American society that historians termed the “counterculture”. The Nest is a product of time when it was written. It is anti-authoritarian and tells the tale of a man's rebelling against the establishment. Kesey used metaphor to make a social commentary on the America of the sixties. In this paper I will

Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is a creation of the socio-cultural context of his time. Social and cultural values, attitudes and beliefs informed his invited reading of his text.

We feel that One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest is filled with many psychological connotations. This movie is set in a mental hospital where McMurphy was admitted to be psychologically evaluated because of violent behavior. Upon his arrival McMurphy noticed that the patients were very robot-like in their actions. The hospital is extremely structured where the patient’s daily life was monotonous. We will discuss the various connotations by answering the following questions that have been asked.